Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  Before Ricio knew it, he’d pulled even with the formation. “Azie, how do I open a channel to them?”

  “You only need think it, commander, and the channel will be opened,” Azelon replied.

  “Yeah, cause that’s how I thought it was supposed to work.”

  “Well done.”

  “I was kidding.”

  Azelon paused. “I have so much to learn about your species.”

  Ricio did as she instructed and noticed a green comms channel icon display on his HUD. “Transport shuttle bound for the Azelon Spire, this is Commander Ricio Longo. Do you read me?”

  There was no answer. Ricio almost asked Azelon for help but decided to try again first.

  “Transport shuttle bound for the Spire, this is Ricio, the guy…” He bit his lip. “The pilot you had in the brig. Do you copy? Over.”

  “We copy, Ricio,” said a man’s booming voice. Ricio turned and saw a dark Miblimbian face appear in the closest shuttle’s bridge window. “And just who in the hell let you out of your cell?”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I said I didn’t know.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t blame you.” He chuckled. “Listen, I just wanted to let you know that the skies are clear and I’ll be at your three o’clock all the way back to the Spire.”

  “And then what? You booking it back to Moldark?”

  “That’s a negative, mister…” Ricio waited, willing the man to identify himself.

  “Abimbola,” he finally said.

  “Then that’s a negative, Mr. Abimbola. I’m with you for the long haul.”

  The big man hesitated. “We are grateful for your help. Yet you still have got a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Don’t I know it. Everyone okay in there?”

  “All things considered, yes. Several people need medical attention. But it could have been a lot worse.” A short silence filled the channel. Ricio wondered if maybe the giant was warming to him. “We saw a lot of fancy flying on radar. Was that you, jockey?”

  “Eh. Nothing the old girl and I couldn’t handle.”

  Abimbola’s eyebrows lifted high. “You are already calling that fancy starfighter old?”

  Ricio laughed. “Sorry, not the fighter. Azelon.”

  “I’ve been nicknamed again,” the AI said.

  “Have you now,” Abimbola replied, smiling.

  “Yes. And according to an ancient Novian proverb, it seems I am well loved.”

  “Well loved?” Ricio repeated. “Okay, I’m game. What’s the proverb?”

  “A person with many names is much loved,” Azelon replied.

  Ricio shrugged. “Then it seems you are loved indeed.”

  “As are you, commander,” Azelon said.

  Ricio tilted his head. He had to admit, playing with this AI was more fun than he expected it to be. “Okay. I’ll bite. What nicknames make me much loved?”

  “You’re the best cocky-ass bastard I know.”

  36

  Magnus felt himself arrive at consciousness like a hover train pulling into a station after a slow crawl out of a subterranean tunnel. He opened his eyes to the dim lights of sickbay, noting that his bioteknia interface was running in standby mode. Only a small icon blinked in the lower right corner. He had no idea how long he’d been out or how he’d arrived back on the Spire, but a quick consult from his interface would answer several of those questions.

  Magnus was a breath away from hovering his focus on the icon when a thought struck him. A dark thought. A thought so painful that his heart was already wrenching at the idea of it before the vapor had fully formed. But he couldn’t stop the sentence from coming, just like he couldn’t stop the sun rising.

  My eyes, he thought. They were a gift from… from her.

  On another planet at another time, one that felt so long ago from the present, he’d awakened in a sickbay much less refined than this one. There, he stared into the eyes of an angel, one who’d given him the gift of sight. The gift had stripped him of his career, of his future. At least the one he cared about at that time. But in the process it gave him a new direction, a new future, which led him here. Only the angel wouldn’t be coming around a corner to inspect his injuries.

  “Valerie…”

  Magnus hardly recognized his voice. It was tight and dry. But it was his nonetheless. He blinked, trying to encourage his thoughts past the sorrow that twisted his gut in a hundred different directions. But the damn little icon in the lower right reminded him of his eyes. Of her.

  “Valerie.”

  This time when he said her name, tears came. She was gone. He didn’t understand how. Couldn’t see how. But she’d been gunned down. He saw her body, her open helmet, her broken face. He winced, squinting against the memory, forcing it into the depths where it belonged. It was a fiction, after all. Wasn’t it? Just a bad dream. Valerie wasn’t really dead, and Piper wasn’t really gone. It’s all just a bad dream, he thought. And now that I’m awake, we can get back to whatever it was we were getting to, and life will work itself out.

  Only, it wasn’t a dream. It had been real. All of it. And he’d lived to see it. To witness the horrific loss of a woman he cared for, and to see the pain in the face of the little girl he loved so very much. But worse than losing Valerie, Magnus realized, was losing Piper.

  The way the little girl refused to look at him broke his heart. Her defiant posture burned a hole through his chest a fathom deep, and then some. It cut him, like a Jujari sword. Like a duradex blade. It cut him deeper than any pain he supposed he’d ever felt. Even more than the pain of losing his brother. And that startled him. But he supposed he knew why.

  Argus had chosen his own fate. He’d known what he was doing. He’d known the end he was racing toward. Any other Marine could have caught him, but fate made sure it was Magnus.

  Piper though? She was different. She hadn’t chosen this. Instead, fate chose her. Something had happened to her when was with Nos Kil. Something had broken inside of her. Magnus blamed himself for it, of course, and Awen had tried to argue the failed logic of it all. But Magnus knew that somehow, he was responsible… for allowing Nos Kil on the ship. For not killing him when he had the chance. Chances.

  The accident with Valerie was unspeakable, and he couldn’t blame Piper for her anger and pain. But Magnus longed to know what else he’d done to hurt Piper. He longed to go back in time and put all the pieces together again. But try as he might, he couldn’t figure it out. It was like trying to put one of those old puzzles together in the dark—hands fumbling with a thousand pieces but never arranging them well enough to fit.

  Magnus heard beeping as he sat up. His head swam, so he gripped the sides of the table to keep from falling. More beeps, some corresponding with his pulse, filled the small chamber. He willed them to slow as he tried to control his breathing.

  He cleared his eyes again and tried to focus on the central hexagonal room. Several other people slept peacefully in the chambers extending from the walls. All the lights were low, and Magnus wondered if it was the middle of the night. Again, the small icon pulsed in the lower right-hand corner of his vision. Just a quick focused effort would open it and tell him what time it was. But it would bring the pain of Valerie’s death too, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that again. Not yet. In fact, he suddenly wondered if he’d ever be able to handle it. That damn blinking button was going to be his eternal reminder of her. Son of a bitch.

  He swung his legs over the side of the table. For the first time, he noticed fresh pink skin on his kneecaps. More on the tops of his feet. Shins. Thighs. He pulled his hands off the edge of the table and looked at his arms. They were covered in patches of pink skin, like a newborn baby’s. Then he touched his face.

  His beard was gone, as was the rugged feel of his weathered skin along his cheeks, nose, and mouth. His forehead was tender, as were his ears. His head had been mostly shaved, leaving him with a fuzzy crewcut like the old timers wore.
r />   Magnus rubbed the back of his neck as the gravity of the situation dawned on him. Apparently, he’d been in too much shock to realize just how bad the rocket had damaged him. This amount of skin grafting was consistent with people who’d nearly died from third degree burns. The fact that he’d even made it this far must’ve been… a damned miracle.

  He took a deep breath and muttered a small prayer of thanks for whoever had overseen his surgery. Or surgeries. How long had it taken? And just how long had he been out? The questions finally got the better of him and, against the protest of his emotions, he decided to check the time. He looked at the pulsing icon and powered on his eyes.

  The hexagonal lattice grew from the center of his vision like a spider web built at high speed. Then it faded into the background while several status bars illuminated in the corners. He instinctively looked at the date and time stamp, and his heart sank.

  “Four days?” He rubbed the back of his neck again, then rolled his head. “Splick.”

  Suddenly, he noticed another icon blinking in the upper left—it was a notification for one new message. “Just one?” he asked himself, knowing the humor would be lost on anyone else. Since when does someone in charge only get one message after four days?

  Magnus hovered his attention over the message icon, and a window appeared in the foreground. He knew it didn’t matter how his head was orientated, but he still felt compelled to raise it level when watching these.

  “Hello, sir,” said an image of a familiar bot standing just inside sickbay. “This is TO-96, in case you need a reminder. In the instance where you awaken while the rest of the crew is sleeping, this message will serve to orient you in the interim. As such, let me be the first to welcome you back to the Spire and bid you a very early good morning.

  “As you’ve probably already noticed, you’ve undergone substantial skin grafting due to the burns you suffered in the rocket attack. While your adrenaline maintained your primary bodily functions following the blast, Willowood eventually placed you in a controlled stasis upon your departure in the shuttle.

  “Also, you will be pleased to know that the surgery was a violently concussive success.”

  Magnus raised an eyebrow. “You mean smashing, ’Six.”

  The recording pressed on. “Azelon and I conducted the skin grafts while Willowood attended to your soul.”

  “My soul?” Magnus asked, putting a hand to his chest. The thought of some squirrely old lady tinkering with his insides made him uneasy.

  “Your new skin will take some time to acclimate, but it should blend rather well with your existing architecture, far exceeding that of current Repub standards. Azelon noted that the procedure went far more quickly than had you been a Novian patient—given all their hair. She assured me that your beard will grow back relatively soon.

  “As for the rest of the crew, everyone seems to be recovering rather well from minor injuries. Unfortunately, our three losses include Andocs, Haney, and Stone.”

  Just hearing ’Six mention Valerie’s last name made Magnus’s heart ache.

  “Additionally, Piper’s whereabouts are currently unknown, though both Willowood and Awen, along with a small contingent of the Luma, have given themselves to searching for her within the Unity.

  “As for us, we have temporarily retreated to metaspace and are monitoring the area around the quantum tunnel. So far, our retreat has gone undetected and there has been no sign of activity on either side of the void horizon. Additionally, Azelon’s systems have been restored, so there is no need to worry about any more security breaches. It seems that Miss Piper’s earlier tampering did more to the Spire’s infrastructure than we’d previously noted, resulting in secondary malfunctions of the brig’s security features. But, as I said, everything has been restored.

  “Before I sign off, it is worth noting that Commander Mauricio Longo helped ensure our escape from Worru via his use of a Novian starfighter—with Azelon’s supervision, of course.”

  “Ricio?” Magnus said in surprise to the recording. Maybe his hard work at trying to persuade the pilot to join them had paid off. But who the hell let him out of the brig?

  TO-96’s message moved ahead before Magnus could give it more thought. “It seems that he and Nos Kil escaped from their cells, which is a conversation you will no doubt want to have with Azelon and Ricio at a later point. The interruption of orbital fire support that you overheard with Flow and Cheeks was due to a skirmish between them and Nos Kil. Again, Ricio helped your men subdue the prisoner and return him to his cell. One might say that the Repub pilot helped saved the day twice… in one day. Now that I think about it, that sentence needs work. In any case, I would be remiss if I did not encourage you to praise him upon your next meeting.

  “Your crew and your ship await you, sir. We are grateful for your presence, your health, and your leadership as you guide us toward the next objectives—whatever those may be. TO-96 signing off. End recording.”

  The window blipped out of existence.

  Magnus was left staring at his chamber’s sidewall with his legs still dangling off the side of the bed. He felt slightly unnerved that so much had happened without him. But he was grateful that everyone and the ship were at least safe for the time being. Stowing away in metaspace to regroup was definitely the right move, and he made a mental note to thank whoever came up with that course of action. Not only would they be safe, but the time dilation would give them an opportunity to come up with their next steps.

  Magnus decided to try his legs and slipped off the table. His nerve endings shuddered for a moment, sending sparks of minor discomfort to his brain from various parts of his body. But it wasn’t painful. In fact, it felt good—like stretching out the soreness of muscles too long in one position. He moved his back and arms, but suddenly noted that his new skin still seemed tight. Certain motions made the patches stretch, and—based on the shooting pain it caused—he decided not to make those movements again, at least for another day or two.

  As Magnus’s began deciding what he wanted to do next, a thought came to mind. Something in TO-96’s message stood out to him. Something that piqued his curiosity. It was the item about Azelon’s system being restored.

  “Azelon, are you there?”

  “Of course, Magnus. It’s nice to see you are awake and feeling better.”

  “No small thanks to you.”

  “It’s an honor to serve you, sir. And I see you viewed TO-96’s recorded message.”

  “I did. Though… how do you know that?” But Magnus wasn’t quite ready for what he was sure would be a tedious explanation. “You know what? Never mind.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Azie, I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Blaster bolt.”

  Magnus paused. “Ah… what?”

  “Is that not the correct colloquialism? Blaster bolt?”

  “I’m not following.”

  “TO-96’s lexicon recommends using a reference to a fired rifle when positively responding to a request for more information.”

  Suddenly, the right word dawned on Magnus and he couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean shoot.”

  Azelon was slow in replying; Magnus wondered just what was going on in that big, beautiful brain of hers. “I have successfully updated my file on this for all future instances. Please shoot.”

  Magnus grinned. “’Six mentioned that your brig systems had been restored. Is that accurate?”

  “It is, sir. I have regained control of all security doors and sensors.”

  “Would that happen to include any recorded data from those sensors? Say, video and audio?”

  “Yes, Magnus. All sensory data is stored locally with or without my presence, though I am the only one with root access to it.”

  “So… do you have full records of Nos Kil’s cell in the brig?”

  “I have complete file set of his cell’s cameras.”

  “Which includes the conversation he had with Piper?”

/>   “As I said, sir, I have access to a complete file set of—”

  “Can you bring up that conversation, Azie?”

  “Processing request. Please stand by.”

  Magnus waited, suddenly aware that his heart rate had increased and he could feel the blood rush to his face. His battlefield experience had taught him how to subdue an adrenaline rush, but he could already feel his fight or flight instincts going into overdrive. To think that he was about to hear Piper and Nos Kil’s conversation and to see what had happened… He shut his eyes against whatever foul images his imagination tried to play on him. No, Nos Kil never touched her, he reminded himself. At least that is what Valerie’s analysis had told them. But maybe Azie’s footage would contradict that? Mystics, I hope not.

  “How would you like to review the requested data?”

  Magnus blinked himself out of his thoughts. “What’s that?”

  “The data, sir. Of Nos Kil and Piper’s conversation. How would you like to review it?”

  “Can you send it to my eyes? Maybe feed me the audio through the overhead speakers?”

  “Your bioteknia eyes have transducers that are applied directly to the bone of your eye sockets specifically for the purpose of two-way audio transmission. Were you not aware of this?”

  “No.” Magnus thought he should ask Valerie about this. Then a rush of heat flooded his neck and surged into his face. “I wasn’t made aware. Proceed.”

  “Sending data to your eyes. Please stand by.”

  Magnus paced the floor when a security camera feed filled his vision. It was as if he was perched in the upper corner of Nos Kil’s cell, looking down at the man with Piper on the other side of the forcefield. Magnus knew better than to try and watch this standing up, so he reached out and found his medical bed to sit down.